


‘Cause in the End You’re Still My Friend

by asexualjuliet



Series: Note to Self: Don’t be Gay in Indiana [8]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, I love him, Lucas Sinclair for #1 gay ally, Mike acts like an asshole in this one but he comes around eventually, Outing, T for swearing, There are two slurs but they’re heavily censored, will byers is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23430214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualjuliet/pseuds/asexualjuliet
Summary: “We know you don’t like girls!” Mike says, and it’s like Will’s heart straight-up stops, except for the fact that he can hear it pounding in his ears.
Relationships: Will Byers & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, one-sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler - Relationship
Series: Note to Self: Don’t be Gay in Indiana [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614571
Comments: 21
Kudos: 159





	‘Cause in the End You’re Still My Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broadway_hufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadway_hufflepuff/gifts).



> Kind of inspired by the “not my fault” scene, but this time mike realizes he was an asshole.
> 
> (Is the first line of this a Freaks and Geeks reference?? Yes absolutely).
> 
> Title from “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Sure, it _is_ the twenty-seventh time Will has seen _Star Wars: A New Hope,_ and sure, he _could_ probably recite the dialogue by heart if he really wanted to, but he’d rather just watch the movie. 

Mike and El don’t seem to understand that, though, because they seem to think that no one can see them kissing behind the blanket they’ve covered themselves with. Max and Lucas don’t seem to care about the movie at all: they’re loudly arguing over whether Pac-Man or Tetris is better. 

(It’s Pac-Man, but Will reserves the right to feel a little pissed off at both of them).

Will really wishes Dustin was here, so he wouldn’t be such a fifth wheel, but he’s stuck at home with the flu, so Will’s just gonna have to deal alone today. 

“Can you guys shut up?” he asks, a bit harsher than he meant to. 

“Shit, sorry, Will,” says Lucas. 

“Sorry,” says Max with a sheepish grin, “I didn’t realize we were being so loud.

“It’s okay,” says Will, and the basement is silent, save for the voices of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. 

And the sounds of Mike and El, giggling under their precious blanket kingdom. 

Will feels an irrational surge of jealousy and hate. 

“Can you guys knock it off?” he asks, pausing the TV. When Mike and El say nothing, he stands up and pulls the blanket off of them. 

“What the fuck, Will?” asks Mike. 

Mike has El in his arms, and she looks so happy, and Will can’t help the tight feeling it brings to his chest. 

“Can you guys stop making out for like, five seconds?” he asks, not caring how rude he knows he sounds. “It’s gross. And you know, you _do_ have other friends.”

“Oh, get over it, Will!” he says. “You know if _you_ had a boyfriend you’d probably want to hang out with him, too.”

Will’s face goes hot. A pit opens in his stomach and he can’t find enough air to take a breath. 

“What?” is all he can say without letting out the tears rapidly forming in his eyes, and he hopes it’s enough to make Mike apologize, or Lucas change the subject, or Max ask loudly whether Mike thinks Pac-Man is better than Tetris, but it’s not. 

The room is silent until Mike speaks up again. 

“You’ve been on our backs all summer for wanting to spend time with our girlfriends, Will, but you’re just fucking _jealous_ you don’t have someone of your own!”

“Mike—” Lucas starts, but Mike cuts him off. 

“We know you don’t like girls!” he says, and it’s like Will’s heart straight-up stops, except for the fact that he can hear it pounding in his ears. 

“It’s not some kind of fucking _secret,_ Will!”

And it’s like those words hit him in the chest, almost knock him over, and Will does what he does best. 

He _runs._

“What the _fuck,_ Wheeler?” asks Max after Will bolts up the stairs. She stands up. “I’ll find him. Don’t let Wheeler out of this goddamn basement. He’s done enough damage.”

And with that, she runs off up the stairs. 

Another silence descends upon the remaining three members of the room, until Lucas breaks it. 

“That was an asshole move,” he says, and Mike scoffs. 

“It’s true!” Mike says. 

Lucas shakes his head. “You don’t _know_ that,” he tells Mike, and Mike sighs. 

“He’s _clearly_ not into girls, Lucas. People have been calling him a f****t since he was five years old.”

“Don’t say that,” Lucas says immediately. “Don’t say that word.”

Lucas hears people say that word all the time, and it never gets any easier. It gives him the same sick feeling in his stomach as he gets when someone says the word _n*****,_ whether it’s directed at his family or not. 

“You don’t _know_ he’s gay, Mike,” Lucas says. “God, you _never_ know unless he tells you. And with the way you treat him, I don’t see why he ever would!”

“He’s almost definitely gay,” Mike tries to reason. 

“‘Almost definitely’ doesn’t give you the right to assume shit about him and broadcast it to the entire world, dumbass!”

“You guys aren’t the entire world,” Mike mumbles. 

“People get _killed_ for being gay,” Lucas says. “People are dying of AIDS, fucking _Reagan_ is president, Mike. Being gay now is like being black twenty years ago: people hate you and they want you dead.”

Mike stays silent. El sits beside him with curious eyes. 

“You can’t say something that could get someone killed on the basis that it’s ‘almost definitely’ true,” Lucas says, “and even if it was, it’s not yours to tell.”

A silence follows.

“Mike?” El says quietly. 

“Yeah?”

“What’s gay?”

“Uh,” Mike says, “um, it’s like, if—”

Lucas cuts him off. “It’s when a boy likes a boy, like in the way you like Mike. Like, if a boy wants a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend, that means he’s gay.”

El nods.

“Is that bad?” she asks, tilting her head. 

“No,” says Lucas, giving Mike a pointed look. “It’s not. But there are some people who think it is so you shouldn’t talk about it in public.”

El nods again. 

“Is Will gay?” she asks, and Lucas answers her before Mike can even open his mouth. 

“We don’t know,” Lucas tells her. “He might be, but he hasn’t told any of us yet if he is or not, so we really don’t know.”

El hums. “Okay,” she says, and it’s as simple as that. 

Mike doesn’t meet Lucas’ gaze. 

—

Max finds Will just a little way down the road, sitting on the sidewalk in the pouring rain. 

“Hey,” she says quietly, as more of a way to warn him she’s here than an actual greeting. 

“Hey,” he says, hugging his knees. 

Max sits down next to him, despite the rain that seeps into her jeans upon contact with the sidewalk. 

It’s hard to tell with the rain, but she’s pretty sure there are tears running down his face. 

“Mike’s an asshole,” she says. 

“He’s my best friend,” Will replies immediately, with a loyalty in his voice that Max can’t quite comprehend. 

“He treats you like shit,” she says. “That was a dick move, and he had no right to—”

“I am,” Will says quietly. “Gay. He was right, I am.” He wipes his eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve, avoiding eye contact. 

“So what?” Max asks. “Just because he’s right doesn’t mean he gets to pull that shit on you.”

Will shrugs. 

“Maybe it’s better if everyone knows,” he says. “I don’t have to tell anyone anymore.”

“They _don’t_ know,” Max says. “They don’t know, Will. Just because Mike Wheeler, king of all he surveys, says something is true doesn’t mean it is.”

Will shrugs again.

“They don’t know until you tell them,” Max tells him. “They don’t know until you want them to know.”

“They already think I am,” Will says. “Everyone thinks I am. They call me names. Fairy and f****t and stuff.”

“They’re fucking assholes,” says Max, “and thinking isn’t knowing.”

“Mike’s not an asshole,” Will insists, that same loyalty still shining through. “He’s—you don’t know him as well as I do.”

Max doesn’t dignify this with a response. 

“Really,” Will says, more like he’s trying to get himself to believe the words than Max. “He—he used to hold my hand in the dark so I wouldn’t get scared, and he told the most amazing stories, and we’d have sleepovers and talk all night and every time I drew him something, his eyes would light up and he’d spend forever telling me how good it was, and—”

He cuts himself off. “He’s my best friend,” Will says again, desperately hanging on to that truth. 

Max just looks at him. 

“I know I should be mad at him,” he tells Max. “But it’s not that easy.”

“Why not?” Max asks, and Will goes red. 

“It’s just like—” he says, “It’s like he’ll say something and it’ll make me feel so shitty but every time I try to call him out, I just—I look in his eyes and something inside me gives up.”

Max furrows her brow. 

“I can’t fight him,” Will says, “And I don’t know if it’s because he’s my best friend or if—if it’s because I _love_ him—” Will’s voice cracks. 

Max’s eyes widen. 

“Which, y’know, I _do,”_ Will says. “God, of course I do, I’ve been in love with him since _forever,_ but, shit, I look into his eyes and it’s like I _can’t_ be mad at him, y’know?” He looks at Max with pleading eyes, as if he’s hoping upon hope that she _will_ know what he means. 

“I don’t,” she says, and Will’s face falls. 

“I’ve never had a friend like how you have Mike,” Max explains. “I was always afraid to get close to people. You’re not like that.”

Will tilts his head. 

“You have Mike and Lucas and Dustin and El and Jonathan and Joyce and Hopper,” she says, “and—and you have me. You’ve got all these people who would _literally_ go through hell and back for you.”

There’s a silence filled only by the pitter-patter of rain on pavement. 

“I think that’s why you can’t be mad at him,” she says. “Because he’d give his goddamn life for you, and you’d do the same for him.”

“I would,” Will says. “God, of course I would.”

“Mike’s a good person,” Max tells him, and it pains her to say. “But good people can act like assholes, and you have to stand up for yourself.”

“I know,” Will says. “But it’s hard.”

“I know,” Max says. “But you’ve got me. and Lucas.”

“And Dustin and El and Jonathan and Mom and Hopper,” says Will with a smile. “Thanks, Max.”

“No prob, Byers,” says Max, standing up. “You ready to go back?”

“Yeah,” Will says, and Max reaches out a hand. 

Will takes it, and they walk back through the rain. 

They’ll be okay. 

—

“I’m sorry,” Mike says when they’re walking home from Steve’s house the next week. The night is dark and Will can barely make out anything but Mike’s gorgeous hazel eyes. 

“I was a dick,” Mike continues. “I shouldn’t have assumed shit about you, and I’m sorry.”

Will stops. “It’s okay,” he says. 

“It’s not,” Mike says, looking him in the eye. “I was an asshole, and I’m sorry.”

“You were right,” Will says quickly, before he can talk himself out of it. 

Mike looks at him. 

“I’m gay,” Will says. “You were right.”

“I still shouldn't have said it,” Mike says. 

“Thank you for apologizing,” Will says with a slight smile. 

“Thank you for telling me,” says Mike. 

Will starts to walk again. 

Mike hesitates, then takes his hand. 

Will looks up at Mike with wide eyes. 

Mike just smiles. 

And for a moment in time, it’s just like it used to be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> All mistakes are my own, please let me know if you see any!
> 
> Kudos/Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
